As we prepare for the mock draft, my thoughts drift back to the roto blunders that I've had in my ten year career. We've all had them (I assume). Every year our auction draft giggles about the "Avery Incident" when a rookie owner put Steve Avery out for $20 in his first Boston year. The deafening silence that followed suggested that perhapsy he might have gotten him for somewhat less.

My worst pick ever was also my first pick ever. Three of us joined an existing league in which three teams were available and we each picked a total of three players from the pool of three teams to have three contracts going into the auction. First overall I picked Hall of Shame candidate Pat Listach who had just been rookie of the year for the then AL Milwaukee Brewers and was going to steal 50 bases and lead me to a rookie success. OUCH.

Carl Everett for about $21 last year was probably second. It was a classic bid em up and run em out of money strategy that backfired.

There have been some good ones too but its those disasters that remind us this is an exact science.

I think Lima sent quite a few fantasy fanatics into therapy... And Pat Listach? Ouch!

One of my worst (and strangest) overall drafts was in '99, when I drafted a whole lot of guys who turned out to be fantastic... in 2000.

Let's see... Chan Ho Park was coming off a 3.71 era season and I expected great things from him. And he did take it to the next level in 2000 (3.27, 18w, 217k). Unfortunately, his 1999 era was 5.23...

Then there was Troy Glaus: 29 hr, .240 average in '99, 47 and .284 the next year.

Or Jorge Posada, whose .245 average and 12 homers wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. The following season he raised those numbers to .287 and 28.

And so on and so on... This seemed to happen to all the guys I picked, no matter if they were stars or sleepers. The following season, this would have been a killer team. Unfortunately, it wasn't a keeper league.